“At the regular meeting of the Prudential Committee, held at the Missionary Rooms, on Tuesday afternoon, May 27, 1834, it was: ‘Resolved that Mr. Edwin O. Hall of the city of New York be appointed an assistant missionary of the Board and designated to the Sandwich Islands, to be employed as a printer in connection with that mission.’”

“‘Resolved that Miss Williams, of the city of New York be appointed an assistant missionary of the Board, with the expectation of her being united in marriage with Mr. Edwin O. Hall, this day appointed to the Sandwich Island mission.’”

“Embarking December 5, 1834, on the ship Hellespont with six other missionaries (Rev. Titus Coan and wife; Henry Dimond and wife. Bookbinder; Miss Lydia Brown. Teacher.; Miss Elizabeth M. Hitchcock. Teacher) comprising the sixth reinforcement (Seventh Company) to the mission, after a voyage of six months, Mr. Hall and his bride reached Honolulu, June 6, 1835.’”

“He at once took charge of the printing office in Honolulu, relieving Mr. Rogers, who was transferred to the branch printing office at the High School at Lahainaluna, Maui. Mrs. Hall’s health failed after a year or two, as she became afflicted with a serious spinal trouble, which prevented her from walking and kept her confined all day on her couch.” (Ballou)

Levi Chamberlain wrote to Rufus Anderson that, “The health of several of the missionaries is in a deranged state … Mrs Hall continues ill and a voyage to the NW Coast is recommended in her case … hoping that the cold of that region will restore (her)”. (Chamberlain)

The Halls arrived in the Oregon Country in 1839. On April 19, 1839, Hiram Bingham, head of the Hawaiʻi mission wrote, “The church & congregation of which I am pastor has recently sent a small but complete printing and binding establishment …”

“… by the hand of Brother Hall, to the Oregon mission, which with other substantial supplies amount to 444,00 doll. The press was a small Hand press presented to this mission but not in use. The expense of the press with one small font of type, was defrayed by about 50 native females …”

“… including Kina‘u or Ka‘ahumanu 2d. This was a very pleasing act of Charity. She gave 10 doll, for herself & 4 for her little daughter Victoria Ka‘ahumanu 3d.” (This is not the same press that Bingham brought on their initial voyage to Hawaiʻi.) Mr. Hall helped set up the press at the Lapwai mission station.

Mrs. Hall suffered from a chronic illness of the spine. To reach various inland destinations she traveled by canoe when possible. She was carried in a hammock from Ft. Walla Walla to Waiilatpu. On November 5, 1839, she gave birth to a daughter. The Halls returned to Hawaii in March 1840. (Whitman Mission)

In 1843, at the time when Admiral Thomas restored the Kingdom, Hall wrote lyrics (sung to the tune of ‘God Save the King’) honoring the Hawaiian Kingdom: Hail! to our rightful king!; We joyful honor bring; This day to thee!; Long live your Majesty!; Long reign this dynasty!; And for posterity; The sceptre be.

It was “Sung at the great cold water luau (‘temperance picnic’) given by H.H.M. Kamehameha III, in Nu‘uanu to several thousands of natives and all the Foreigners including the officers of 4 ships of war. For which Admiral Thomas thanked the ladies and gent who did him the honor.” (August 3, 1843)

EO Hall left the mission in 1849 and on May 19 of that year was appointed director of the Government Printing Office (GPO); his responsibilities included printing The Polynesian, the GPO printed all of Hawaii’s statutes and other official documents. (He left this position on May 19, 1855.) (LOC)

The business of EO Hall & Son, Limited, was commenced in 1852, under the firm name of EO Hall, at the corner of Fort and King streets, Honolulu. For over a year after starting, the business was under the personal charge of Mr. TL Leyman, a half-brother to EO Hall, who at that time was editing the Polynesian newspaper.

In these early years, most of the customers were natives, and besides hardware the stock consisted of dry goods of all kinds and quite an assortment of groceries.

In 1859, William W Hall entered the employ of the firm as clerk, and became partner with his father in 1865, when the name of the firm was changed to EO Hall & Son.

The firm continued to deal in hardware, agricultural Implements, dry goods, leather, paints and oils, sliver-plated ware, wooden ware, tools of all kinds, kerosene oil, etc., until about the year 1878, when dry goods were dropped, except a few staple articles.

In 1880, Mr E Oscar White, a grandson of EO Hall, became an employee of the firm. In 1883 the business was incorporated, and during that same year Edwin Oscar Hall, the founder of the business, died (September 19, 1883) while on a visit to the US at Falmouth, Maine.

The company later put in stock a complete line of ship chandlery, and this has become one of the principal features of the business. This includes a large assortment of manila rope and iron and steel wire rope of all sizes up to four Inches. (Alexander)

Hawaiians called the hospital and dispensary Hale Ma‘i o ka Wahine Ali‘i (literally, sick house of the lady chief,) or Hale Ma‘i for short. Opening day was August 1, 1859. (Greer)

“The Queen’s Hospital was founded in 1859 by their Majesties Kamehameha IV and his consort Emma Kaleleonalani. The hospital is organized as a corporation …”

“… and by the terms of its charter the board of trustees is composed of ten members elected by the society and ten members nominated by the Government ….” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 31, 1901)

“(A) number of persons, resident in Honolulu and other parts of the Kingdom have entered into a voluntary contribution, by subscription, for the purpose of creating a fund, for the erection and establishment of a Hospital at Honolulu, for the relief of indigent sick, and disabled people of the Hawaiian Kingdom, as well as of such foreigners, and others, as may desire to avail themselves of the same …”

The “subscribers … resolved that they should associate themselves together as a Body Politic and Corporate, for the purpose of carrying into effect the objects and intentions of the said subscribers …”

“…the following on behalf of the said subscribers were elected by ballot to act as Trustees, on behalf of the said subscribers, viz, BF Snow, SC Damon, SN Castle, CR Bishop, JW Austin, EO Hall, TJ Waterhouse, WA Aldrich, WL Green and H Hackfeld …”

Some 250 businesses, groups, and individuals had subscribed $13,530; the king and queen headed the list of subscribers with pledges of $500 each. (Greer) The following are the initial 10-Trustees who were elected:

Benjamin Franklin Snow had “a spacious two-story coral building that stood on Merchant street, near the corner of Fort … The building was erected early in the forties,’’ and for some time was occupied by Makee & Jones, afterwards Makee & Anthon.

It was moved into by Captain Snow, following his fire in the Brewer premises on Fort street in 1852. Snow was associated with the early entities that eventually formed C Brewer. Snow died December 20, 1866 on the fortieth anniversary of his arrival in Honolulu from Boston in the brig Active. (Thrum)

Samuel Chenery Damon, son of Colonel Samuel Damon, was born in Holden, Massachusetts, February 15, 1815. He was graduated from Amherst College in 1836, studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1838-39, and was graduated at Andover Theological Seminary in 1841. He was an American missionary.

He was preparing to go to India as a missionary and was studying the Tamil language for that purpose, when an urgent call came for a seaman’s chaplain at the port of Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands. He was ordained September 15, 1841, and he decided to accept the position at Honolulu.

Damon was pastor of the Seamen’s Bethel Church, chaplain of the Honolulu American Seamen’s Friend Society and editor of the monthly newspaper The Friend. He died February 7, 1885, at Honolulu, and his funeral next day was attended by a very large congregation, including King Kalākaua his ministers. (Crane, Historic Homes, 1907)

Samuel Northrup Castle landed in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi) in 1837 as part of the 8th Company of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was assigned to the ‘depository’ (a combination store, warehouse and bank) to help the missionaries pool and purchase their supplies, to negotiate shipments around the Horn and to distribute and collect for the goods when received.

Twelve years after Castle had landed in the Islands, the American board decided that its purposes had been accomplished. It advised its representatives that their work was done and the board’s financial support would end. He needed to make a living since monetary support from Missions headquarters had been discontinued.

Castle and his good friend Amos Starr Cooke decided they would become business partners. Many of the missionaries were planning to remain; their needs must be met, so those of other residents and the crews of the whaling ships which wintered in Honolulu harbor. On June 2, 1851, they formed Castle & Cooke.

Charles Reed Bishop was born January 25, 1822 in Glens Falls, New York, and was an orphan at an early age and went to live with his grandparents on their 120-acre farm learning to care for sheep, cattle and horses and repairing wagons, buggies and stage coaches.

By January 1846, Bishop was ready to broaden his horizons. He and a friend, William Little Lee, planned to travel to the Oregon territory, Lee to practice law and Bishop to survey land. They sailed around Cape Horn on the way to Oregon. The vessel made a stop in Honolulu on October 12, 1846; both decided to stay. (Lee later became the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.)

Bishop met and married Bernice Pauahi Paki. Bishop was primarily a banker (he has been referred to as “Hawaiʻi’s First Banker.”) An astute financial businessman, he became one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom from banking, agriculture, real estate and other investments.

James Walker Austin was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, January 8, 1829. He graduated from Harvard College in 1849, and from the Law School two years later. He went in 1851 to California, and then to the Sandwich Islands and was determined to settle there. He was admitted to the Bar in that country, and in 1852 was appointed district attorney.

He was elected to the Hawaiian Parliament, and reelected for three sessions. He was speaker of the House one session. In 1868 he was appointed justice of the Supreme Court by a special act of the Legislature, and he was chosen to revise the criminal code of the islands, in connection with two other judges of the Supreme Court. He was the guardian a number of years, of Lunalilo, heir to the throne.

He returned to the US in 1872 for the education of his children, after a residence at the Sandwich Islands of twenty-one years. He went to Europe the last year of his life, with his wife and daughter; he died in Southampton, England, October 15, 1895. (New England Historic Genealogical Society)

Edwin Oscar Hall arrived with the 7th Company of American missionaries in 1835. He was a Printer and Assistant Secular Agent. He was released in 1850 and became the editor of “The Polynesian” and manager of the Government printing office, 1850-52. The business of EO Hall & Son, Limited started in 1852 at the corner of Fort and King streets.

The firm continued to deal in hardware, agricultural implements, dry goods, leather, paints and oils, silver-plated ware, wooden ware, tools of all kinds, kerosene oil, etc, until about the year 1878, when dry goods were dropped, except a few staple articles. (Alexander)

On May 7, 1891 several EO Hall corporate officers, under the direction of Jonathan Austin, filed with the Hawaiian government to form a partnership to produce and supply electricity as the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO.) (HAER) Five months later – on October 13, 1891 – the co-partnership was dissolved and Hawaiian Electric was incorporated, with total assets of $17,000 and William W Hall as its first President. (HECO)

John Thomas Waterhouse “was born in Berkshire, England, in 1816, and went to school at Wood House Grove boarding school in 1825. The school was a Methodist preacher’s son’s school. I attended that until I was 13 years of age.” He became a businessman.

“I will tell you how the spirit of trade first came upon me. A man was allowed to come on the play ground once a week, Saturdays, to sell notions, etc. I used to invest my little money in sundries which I bought from this man, and sell them again to my playmates during the week at an advance, on credit.”

“Well, I had made a little money, and had heard of the United States, and concluded to cross the Atlantic to (the US.) I had become infatuated with reading the life of John Jacob Astor, and I started out from England, April, 1833, with a determination to become a John Jacob Astor”.

Later, “My father was appointed to a position at Australia and Polynesia and he went there with our entire family, ten brothers and sisters and my wife. I was in business in Hobert Town, Tasmania, for ten years, owning a large number of vessels, and I was a very active man in business there.”

“I had very poor health and was recommended to go to Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands. Well, I went there in one of my own vessels and purchased the property where I now live. That was in 1851, and from San Francisco I travelled backward and forward a great deal and improved very much in health …”

“… and I wish to say right here that the Sandwich Islands are really as fine islands as you can find anywhere in any part of the Pacific, and are known as the ‘Paradise of the Pacific.’” (Hawaiian Gazette, September 24, 1889)

William Arnold Aldrich was born March 27, 1824 at Westmoreland, Cheshire County, New Hampshire. In 1853, Aldrich and Charles Reed Bishop were business partners in Aldrich & Bishop, Importers and Dealers in General Merchandise.

Their building was located on the ewa-mauka corner of Queen and Kaʻahumanu Streets. They primarily sold merchandise to be shipped to supply the California Gold Rush, as well as provisioning whaling vessels.

The general store partnership of Aldrich and Bishop terminated as the whaling industry declined and they later formed a banking institution, the kingdom’s largest financial institution (1858;) this later became First Hawaiian Bank.

William Lowthian Green “was born in Doughty street, London, September 13, 1819. He received his early education in Liverpool, which was completed at King William’s College in the Isle of Man. … He was by profession a merchant. His family for two generations had been engaged in commercial pursuits in the north of England.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 21, 1900)

He joined the rush to California to try his luck finding gold (some of his friends were fortunate, there – he wasn’t.) Green’s health failed after some time in the goldfields and in 1850 he determined to go to China. The ship called at Honolulu, and Green, unable to withstand the hardships of a sailor’s life, and having letters to prominent residents of Honolulu, presented his credentials. (Nellist)

“During the intervals of leisure in his several occupations as merchant, founder of the now prosperous iron works, sugar planter, Deputy British Commissioner, Senator and at times Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, his mind, we may be certain, was fixed upon the working out of the geological theory of the conformation of the earth’s crust.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 21, 1900)

Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers on September 26, 1849. Having purchased an assorted cargo at Hamburg, Germany, Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store on Queen Street.

As business grew its shipping interest, manufacturing and jobbing lines developed a web of commercial relationships with Europe, England and the eastern seaboard. Hackfeld outfitted several whalers and engaged in the trans-shipment trade.

Hackfeld developed a business of importing machinery and supplies for the spreading sugar plantations and exported raw sugar. H Hackfeld & Co became a prominent factor – business agent and shipper – for the plantations. They also opened BF Ehlers dry goods store.

With the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for the folks at H Hackfeld & Co. In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government the companies and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

Shares in the companies were sold to American interests and the former H Hackfeld & Co took a patriotic sounding name, ‘American Factors, Ltd;’ BF Ehlers dry goods store also took a patriotic name, ‘Liberty House.’

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